LIFE, after the Squirrel: The Artists' Works
The artworks in "LIFE, After the Squirrel" are part of a designed
set, which can be interpreted as a metaphor for our soft, symbol and
event-oriented culture. However, the set can also be seen as a surreal
environment, a fairytale landscape, which supports forms of empathy
and, hopefully, thought that does not arise from categorizing.
The project opens with Filipe Miguel's piece, "The Apocalyptic
Squirrelnest." Miguel has installed a shed that has been taken
over by radioactive, polluted squirrels in 2016. To understand what
"LIFE, After the Squirrel" entails, visitors to the exhibition
must remove their shoes and put on the body-related "use-me"
forms, created by the Swiss artist group, relax (marie-antoinette chiarenza,
daniel hauser, daniel croptier). This introduction to the exhibition
presents the sharp contrast that exists between the imaginary 2016 squirrel
nest (a metaphysical, symbolic world) and the pragmatic, economic, time-dominated
world of 2000.
As visitors exit the shed, they enter a hallway that contains a video
piece created by John Neff. This piece includes a cold address to the
nation (which was written prior to Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon
to be given in the event that the mission failed) and text excerpts
from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Hal, the computer,
becomes sentimental. Neff's work raises questions about the role, function,
and qualities of genuine forms of sentimentality.
At the end of the corridor, Mason Cooley's piece, "Video-Viewer"
serves as part of the landscape. Cooley turns a VCR into a bungalow-like
form connected to an LCD display that functions as a window. The images
on the LCD screen, as part of the window of the bungalow, seem to live
in their own fragmented, poetic life.
When visitors exit the corridor they are confronted with Tony Tasset's
taxidermy, "Dead Bluejay." The piece may evoke childhood memories
of initial encounters with death, but it also focuses on the banal:
the importance of the unimportant as a carrier for significance. In
the exhibition space, not far beyond Tasset's bird, Vincent Pruden's
"A Study in Black and White 2," 6 negatives illuminated on
a light table serve as a light at night, and on the wall, the photograph,
"A Study in Black and White 1." Both of Pruden's works deal
with the acceptance of "the other," respect, and vulnerability.
Next, Greg Simsic's videos are performative and poetic works that examine
the deliberate (and staged) incidental. In his playful work, Simsic
plays with two worldviews: LIFE as part of a structure, with a definitive
vocabulary, versus LIFE as part of a contingency-based vocabulary, accepting
the ways things happen, looking for new instead of accepted ways to
express ourselves.
Breaking into the Space, Mike Bouchet's "Commune Futon," a
48-foot long, 6-foot wide, pink, pretty sculptural form begins in the
corner of the space and moves toward the center. As the title implies,
Bouchet's futon strives to bring people together, creating a center.
Bouchet's piece also refers indirectly to the Viennese commune and its
heavy weight of freedom. While Bouchet's piece attempts to unite, Ugo
Rondinone's work demonstrates the barriers between individuals due to
the limitations of communication, and our inability to focus our attention
on individuals outside of ourselves. Rondinone's piece emanates from
two large speakers facing one another in a corner, a conversation between
two people who are not listening to one another at all.
Pipilotti Rist's "Blauer Leibesbrief/ Blue Bodilyletter" shows
a jewel-covered body from a bird's eye-view. The jewels are part of
the body, but they are superfluous and artificial compared to the beauty
of the body itself. In Janet Cardiff's video projection, "Whispering
Room," a young girl tap-dances in a clearing in a forest at dawn.
The clearing frequently serves as a metaphor for disorientation, and
in Cardiff's piece specifically a teenager searching for a form of expression
that is her own. The energy comes from the deliberate act of dancing.
The lightness that Cardiff's piece conveys is also demonstrated in Pia
Wergius's piece, "Sketch for Angels." In Wergius's video,
the artist herself hangs by her fingertips from the frame of a four-story
window. "Sketch for Angels," as the title implies, does not
attempt to make a concrete statement: it lives from its openness. We
can interpret the piece from a classical perspective: as a game between
a horizontal and a vertical axis, between the artist and the passing
clouds of a blue skyline, between gravity and lightness. Instead of
imagining the horizontal and vertical axis in conflict, we can perceive
them as supporting one another in a kind of game, with courage and protection
as the main actors.
Kirstin Stoltmann's work, "Boys and Flowers," includes shots
of teenagers and young men skateboarding on an in-door ramp. Their joy,
innocence, and beauty are intercut with images of flowers. The way that
Stoltman presents the flowers indicates her desire not to have to choose.
They may awaken memories of childhood crushes ("He loves me, he
loves me not.") allowing her to let flowers choose for her as she
did when she was young. In "Boys and Flowers," teenagers represent
the joy of playing. In Aernout Mik's, "Kitchen" the older
men play this role. The laughter in the eyes of the old men, their playful
attitude and deviant awareness that they are being naughty helps the
viewer to examine her or his own identification with the past as well
as the future. It helps us examine how we might accept and enjoy life
when we are close to death.
The last piece in the exhibition, at the far end of a narrow hallway
leading to the exit before the light dims, is Pia Wergius's video piece,
"Perenboom/ Peartree." In this work, Wergius explores the
passing of time and the acceptance of death. A child attempts to tell
a story while streetcars are passing, an old man is sleeping (dreaming)
and other men are trying to give life to a dead pigeon; and in the meantime,
the child forgets to tell her story...
Harm Lux NY August 18, 2000.
